Embracing Social Networking
I’m sure by now you are aware of the rapid growth social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook are experiencing.
It’s no longer possible to hold on to the belief that these are temporary “fads” that will disappear in a year or less, instead they have become more mainstream, larger and have even become a challenge for the major search engines as an alternative way that people will find what they want online.
Wait a minute…“an alternative way to find what they want online!”
That sounds interesting doesn’t it?
After all, that means if you are building relationships, targeting niche markets, building subscriber lists and selling online…then what you always want are ways to reach your niche markets ESPECIALLY at the stage where they are searching for what they want online, right?
WHY SOCIAL NETWORKS ARE WORTH YOUR TIME
Every online marketer has a decision to make, do they invest the appropriate time and energy into building their own social networking platform or ignore it in favor of more traditional marketing techniques?
Because social networking is not a drive-by internet marketing technique, but rather can only be used for marketing in a more subtle way based on the core principles of business (such as knowing who your target customer is within your niche, building value-driven relationships with your marketplace and being both interesting and relevant to your market) a decision to become involved with social networking cannot be taken lightly.
But here are 3 reasons why you cannot ignore social networking stall-worts such as Twitter and Facebook:
1. They provide an alternative way to reach your market – while there is an art to creating relationships on social networks, if you do it correctly, then it can be a great way to reach another 20-30% of your market
2. They are being taken seriously by the search engines. Yes, there does seem to be a trend toward Google (and other search engines I’m sure will follow) to look at your reputation and relevance within sites like Twitter and Facebook when ranking your sites…Google have admitted as much in recent updates
3. In the end, they are a good way to create a relationship with your market – it then becomes a fine art how to you transition those relationships into action, but it certainly can be done. For example, you build 10,000 followers on Twitter and then answer some Q&A relevant to your audience (on the network) – into which you may insert a recommended resource ( your own or an affiliate product) that has helped you…that can convert quite well, BUT it really needs to be in the context of broader dialog for this to work, NOT just spamming out links and recommendations cold.
Most important, as social networks become more and more relevant to YOUR customers, how can you ignore the growing reliance on these platforms as THE way your customers search for solutions, engage with businesses and buy products and services online?
Have you started using Twitter or Facebook yet?
